The Syrian president, Bashar Assad, confirmed today that Turkey had been mediating between his country and Israel since April last year.
Assad told Qatar's al-Watan newspaper that Turkish involvement had yielded an Israeli offer to withdraw from the Golan Heights in return for a peace treaty with Syria.
Both Assad and the Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, have in recent days said their countries had exchanged messages - Olmert told Israeli newspapers last week the messages clarified what each would expect from a future peace deal - but the article in al-Watan provides the first significant details of the communication.
Officials in the Syrian presidency confirmed that Assad gave the interview and did not dispute its contents.
Assad told the newspaper there would be no secret talks with Israel. Instead, the preliminary stages of talks would be held with Turkey as a go-between.
He suggested there would be no direct negotiations with the Jewish state until a new US president takes office.
Assad said the US was the only party qualified to sponsor any direct talks, but said the Bush administration "does not have the vision or will for the peace process. It does not have anything."
Assad told al-Watan he would discuss details of Ankara's mediation with the Turkish prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, when he visits Damascus on Saturday.
He said Syria received news a week ago that Olmert "assured the Turkish prime minister of his readiness to return the Golan", and said: "What we need now is finding common ground through the Turkish mediator."
Israel, which captured the Golan Heights in the 1967 war, declined to comment on the reported offer to return the territory.
It was not clear how much of the Golan Israel may be prepared to return or what its conditions may be for withdrawal.
Syria and Israel last held peace negotiations in 2000. Those talks collapsed over the extent of Israel's proposed withdrawal.
Olmert has never committed himself publicly to a return of the Golan, saying only that he was willing to resume peace talks with Syria if it dropped its support for Hezbollah and Hamas.
Turkey has close relations with both Israel and Syria as well as with the US. Syria has had poor relations with the Bush administration and Washington's regional allies Saudi Arabia and Egypt, particularly over what they see as the obstructive role played by Damascus in efforts aimed at resolving Lebanon's political crisis.
The Syria-Israel contacts are taking place despite tension between the two neighbours over an Israeli air raid on a Syrian military facility in September. Some foreign reports said the target was a nuclear installation being built with North Korean assistance. Damascus says the facility was military, but not a nuclear one.